BIZ BUZZ: In lieu of ‘e-sabong’ …

Like a flash in the pan, “e-sabong” blazed hot and bright for a couple of years in the local gambling scene before former president Rodrigo Duterte ordered it stopped just before the end of his term last year.

But along with its demise went the billions of pesos in betting revenues that kept everyone involved “happy”.

Now, Biz Buzz hears that gaming regulators are readying a new form of gambling to replace the lost revenues from e-sabong.

This will be in the form of electronic games that bettors can play by downloading apps on their mobile phones. Their bets will be debited from their e-wallet accounts and their winnings, if any, will be credited back to these same accounts, much like how it’s been done with e-sabong.

And unlike Pogo games which were strictly for foreign bettors,  this new e-gambling platform will be available to anyone in the Philippines who has a smartphone and an e-wallet account.

Biz Buzz is hearing two prominent names—one from the world of gambling, and another from politics—who will be authorized by regulators to operate this new platform.

Word on the street is that this has the potential to be even bigger than e-sabong, in terms of reach and in terms of the amount of bets it will rake in. Abangan!

—Daxim L. Lucas

AAVA leadership coup upheld

Remember late last year’s Ayala Alabang Village Association (AAVA) boardroom coup d’ etat?

To recall, four out of seven board members voted to declare all the board positions vacant. They installed a new set of officers, with Jimmy dela Rosa as president, replacing Andrew Kahn who was accused of violating internal controls.

A regional adjudication branch of the Human Settlements Adjudication Commission recently granted the injunction sought by Dela Rosa against Kahn—who didn’t recognize his ouster and instead formed a new board, dropped Dela Rosa and allies from that new roster and continued to conduct meetings.

So which board is legit? The adjudication board said it’s the Dela Rosa camp.

The ruling enjoined Kahn from exercising functions as AAVA president, along with his treasurer and a newly appointed governor.

According to the adjudication unit, the Sept. 14 election contested by Kahn’s faction had constituted “clearly a majority” and that Dela Rosa’s subsequent assumption to office was a “valid corporate act” under the Magna Carta for Homeowners and Homeowners Association.

Also upheld was the resolution passed by the new (Dela Rosa-led) board removing the village manager.

Union Bank of the Philippines, AAVA’s depository bank, got involved in the fray as Dela Rosa and allies included the bank—which had not recognized the change in leadership—in their complaint.

This was as UnionBank didn’t honor the amendment to the authorized signatories submitted by Dela Rosa because the new group had yet to submit a new and updated general information sheet to confirm the change in AAVA officers. Not privy to the village politics, the bank chose to preserve the status quo unless there were documents proving the change in officers.

“Because of the validity of Dela Rosa, et al.’s election, the meetings called by Kahn are unauthorized,” said the ruling.

In the case of Unionbank, the ruling said that subject to the submission of the required documents, “the change of signatories should be given effect.”

—Doris Dumlao-Abadilla

Mystery buyers

DITO CME Holdings Corp., a company owned by Davao-based businessman Dennis Uy, is building up its capitalization as it welcomes more investors who recently bought over 2 billion shares in total.

On Thursday, it disclosed that an “unrelated third party subscriber” bought 610 million common shares for P1 each. These represent nearly 4 percent of DITO’s 16.24-billion authorized capital stock.

This was just a day after it announced that an investor purchased 1.59 billion common shares of the company for P1, which account for about 10 percent of the total capitalization.

The difference between the two purchases is that the latter mandates DITO to disclose the name of the investor. Securities law requires this if stockholdings are more than 5 percent of the entire pie.

DITO, as of writing, has yet to make further announcements. With more concrete details yet to be divulged, its stocks are being bought up in the market. INQ

—Tyrone Jasper C. Piad